Binscarth Co-operative Elevator Association Limited Organizational papers: 1928 - 1961 Certificate of Incorporation, 17 February 1928 Memorandum of Association, 17 February 1928 General By-laws, 17 February 1928 Minutes of Provisional Directors meeting, 28 March 1928 First General meeting of Shareholders, 28 March 1928 By-law nos. 1-7, 28 March 1928 Lease, 1 August 1928 Memorandum of agreement (2), 12 November 1929 Letter re: Lease, 23 November 1929 By-law nos. 8, 9, 10 and 11, no date Shareholders meeting, 23 July 1931 Directors meeting, 23 July 1931 By-law nos. 12 and 13, 23 July 1931 Agreement between Binscarth CEA, MPE, Manitoba Wheat Pool and The King, 1 August 1931 By-law no. 14, 17 November 1931 One share stock certificate, 1 December 1931 Application for stock acceptance, 14 January 1932 Letter re: Above application, 30 January 1932 Agreement between Binscarth CEA and MPE, 1 February 1933 Minutes of Special Board of Directors meeting, 7 March 1933 Letter re: Agreement, 17 July 1933 Agreement between Binscarth CEA and MPE, 15 October 1936 By-law nos. 18, 19, 20 and General By-laws, 25 July 1941 Memorandum re: Agreement, 19 June 1944 By-law no. 22, 7 November 1949 Agreement between Binscarth CEA and MPE, 1 August 1951 By-law no. 23, 4 April 1952 General By-laws, 27 October 1952 Directors' Resolution, 18 October 1961 Minutes of Executive Board meetings, volume 1, 1928 - volume 4, 1 December 1969 Minutes of Shareholders Annual meetings, 1929 - 1969 (20 reports) Financial records and statistics Analysis of Operating Results, 1960 - 1962 (1 report) Statement of surplus, 1939 - 1955 (9 reports) Final statement, 1931 - 1952 (5 reports) Auditors reports, 1929 - 1966 (9 reports) Detail of Grain earnings, 1964 - 1967 (3 reports) Resolution, no date Resolution, no date Correspondence, 1929 Membership list, no date - 1950 Miscellaneous Directors Attendance list, 1963 - 1968 (5 reports) Director's report, 1962 Corporate Name: Rural Municipality of Russell
Austin Co-operative Elevator Association Limited Organizational papers: 1940 - 1967 Application to Province for members of company, 23 July 1940 Memorandum of Agreement, August 1940 First General meeting of members - rough draft and typed copy, 18 November 1940 Provisional Board of Directors meeting - rough draft and typed copy, 18 November 1940 Agreement between Austin CEA and MPE, 15 December 1966 By-law no. 11, 27 March 1967 Minutes of Executive Board meetings, volume 1, November 1942 - volume 4, 20 October 1967 Minutes of Shareholders Annual meetings, 1941 - 1966 (39 reports) Financial records and statistics Statement of surplus, 1941 - 1943, 1952 - 1957 Final statements, 1940 - 1943, 1945 - 1952 (10 reports) Auditors' reports, 1953 - 1955 (2 reports) Analysis of Operating Results, 1952 - 1957 (5 reports) Allocation of Surplus, 1951 - 1952 (2 reports) Detail of grain earnings, 1964 - 1966 (2 reports) Capital Expenditure, 31 July 1951 Analysis of Operating Results summary, 1951 - 1952 (1 report) Correspondence, 1940 - 1962 Membership list, 1944 - 1950, 1954, 1961 Miscellaneous Directors' attendance lists, 1946 - 1965 (7 reports) Officers and Directors list, 1951 - 1952 Officers and Directors list, 1952 - 1953 Officers and Directors list, 1955 - 1956 Corporate Name: Rural Municipality of North Norfolk; local Pool Committee mintues November 13, 1967 - January 19, 1981.
Manitoba Pool Elevators was quick to realize the usefulness of the radio medium as a educational and promotional tool. It was also often used to defend the Pool and the co-operative movement in general on programs such as Farm Radio Forum. See fonds level description of RG 4 for complete history/bio of MPE.
Scope and Content
Sub-series MPE B.10 consists of textual radio broadcast transcriptions. The records include transcriptions from 1930 until 1971. Radio broadcasts are on a wide variety of topics, including argicultural science, the grain market and general economy of Canada and the world, government acts and legislation that affected the producer, co-operatives and the co-operative movement, rural life, young people, WWII, Manitoba, and the Manitoba Pool Elevators.
This box contains minutes generated by local MPE associations, collected by the central office. Records include the following:
115a. Brunkild Nov 28 1972 – Dec 2 1974
115b. Brunkild Oct 29 1970 – Nov 8 1972
115c. Brunkild Nov 14 1968 – Nov 9 1970
116a. Beresford Feb 19 1992 – May 13 1998
116b. Beresford August 17 1992 – Dec 14 1991
117. Dunrea Jan 12 1990 – May 31 1993
118a. Jordan Feb 11 1994 – May 27 1996
118b. Jordan Nov 21 1989 – Nov 25 1993
This box contains bound volumes of audited financial statements for local MPE associations. The records include the following:
Local Association Financial Statements 1955-56 A-Dro; 1955-56 Duf-Kat; 1955-56 Kel-Oak; 1955-56 Oak-Woo; 1956-57 A-Fan; 1956-57 Fis-Men; 1956-57 Mia-Woo; 1957-58 A-Fan; 1957-58 Fis-Men; 1957-58 Mia-Woo
The forerunner of Manitoba Pool Elevators (MPE), the Manitoba Wheat Pool was created in 1924 as a mechanism to allow for the co-operative marketing of wheat by Manitoba producers by the United Farmers of Manitoba. The Manitoba Wheat Pool was initially intended to be a provisional organization until the establishment of an interprovincial Pool, but when Alberta and Saskatchewan established their own permanent Pools the United Farmers decided to do the same. The Manitoba Pool was different from the SK and AB Pools in that the municipality was the primary unit of organization; members belonged to their municipal Pool associations first, rather than having direct membership with the central Manitoba Wheat Pool. Manitoba Pool Elevators was established in 1925 as a subsidiary of the Pool in response to local members complaints about the unfair business practices of privately owned elevators. The private elevators also slowed up the shipment of grain to the Central Selling Agency employed by the Wheat Pool, acting as a barrier between the local Pools and the Manitoba Wheat Pool. Once established MPE quickly began to build new elevators and aquire privately owned elevators.
MPE's approach to marketing grain promised to stabilize the market price of grain and ensure a fair market price to producers. Initially the Manitoba Wheat Pool was very successful. However, in 1930, the Manitoba Wheat Pool found itself burdened with an unsold surplus from the preceding year that had been bought from the farmers at a price that was significantly higher than any possible return during the Depression. As a result, in 1931 the Manitoba Wheat Pool's Central Selling Agency defaulted on its bank loans. Despite attempts to save the organization, it was forced to declare bankruptcy in November 1932. The financial difficulties of the Wheat Pool had little to no effect on the Pool Elevators, and so this former subsidiary organization became the main Manitoba Pool organization. This change meant MPE had to reorganize, which they were able to do with funds from the provincial government. The company was successful enough in subsequent years that it was able to finish repaying the Manitoba government a full year early in 1949.
MPE did not limit itself to grain handling; they wished to enrich the lives of rural families through education and to provide economic stability through diversification.
MPE established a lending reference library for members and a traveling library for rural families in 1926. With the passing of the Public Libraries Act in 1948, the province took over responsibility for providing rural families with books. MPE decided that since their traveling library would no longer be needed when rural libraries were established, the best course of action was to donate their library to the Provincial government. They also established and supported programs that educated young people about agriculture and ag business.
Subsidiary companies that dealt with course grains, livestock, packing and fertilizer were established by MPE to streamline and stabilize business for its members.
1961 marked the high water mark for the number of local associations within Manitoba Pool Elevators with 225 local associations. After this date the associations began to amalgamate and consolidate. Improvements in rural roads and rail systems and increases in the size of farms and mechanization of farm labour meant that fewer elevators were needed to service all members and regions. These changes led to an organizational restructuring of Manitoba Pool Elevators in 1968. Membership became direct, and the main unit of organization became the central office. The central office administrated the Pool through districts, which were further subdivided into sub-districts. The locals which were formally the main organizational unit came under the immediate direction of the sub-district they were located in. Local association could opt out of this system if they wished, but by 1975 all but 29 associations had become part of the new structure.
In 1998 Manitoba Pool Elevators merged with the Alberta Wheat Pool to form Agricore Co-operative, Ltd. In 2001 this organization merged with the United Grain Growers to become Agricore United, and in 2007 AU was taken over by the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool; the new company is currently known as Viterra.
Custodial History
The bulk of this fonds was accessioned in 1975, when the forerunner to the McKee Archives at Brandon University, the Rural Resource Center, was founded. The original mandate of the Rural Resource Center was to house the records of the Manitoba Pool Elevators. Previous to this, most of the fonds was stored at MPE's head office in Winnipeg. Many accruals to this collection have since taken place, with some of the larger ones being received in 1997, 2001, and 2002.
Scope and Content
Fonds contains records dealing with every aspect of the Manitoba Pool Elevators organization, from the events leading to its formation in the 1920's, to its amalgamation as part of Agricore beginning in the late 1990's.
Fonds includes records of the local co-operative elevator associations established in the period 1925 - 1968 under the Co-operative Associations Act including: organizational papers; minutes of executive boards; minutes of shareholders annual meetings; financial statements; correspondence; membership lists; and miscellaneous documents.
Also to be found are: documents related to the Royal Commission re the Manitoba Pool Elevators Limited ca. 1931; miscellaneous reports and submissions documents (1925 -1952); central office papers consisting of annual reports, circulars to local co-operative elevator associations and documents related to various other activities of the Manitoba Pool Elevators organization. Fonds also contains documents pertaining to the Manitoba Co-operative Poultry Marketing Association Limited and its successor, the Manitoba Dairy and Poultry Co-operative Limited, and related agencies.
Other items in the fonds (dating from the 1890's to 2001) include: books acquired for the Manitoba Pool Elevator Library, including a complete run of both the Scoop Shovel (MPE's first newspaper)and the Manitoba Cooperator; photographs; slides; audiotapes; and reel-to-reel videos.
Finally, the fonds contains a small number of miscellaneous items such as banners, and company issued briefcases.
This fonds is organized into four series, (A) Local Association records, (B) Central Office Records, (C) Subsidiary Companies and Co-operatives, (D) Commissions, Committees and Inquiries
Notes
Description by Mike White (2002), revised and enlarged by Jillian Sutherland (2009-2010).
History/Bio taken from F.W. Hamilton, "Service at Cost: A History of the Manitoba Pool Elevators 1925-1975" (Saskatoon: Modern Press) and from records within the fonds.
Preparation of this description made possible in part by a generous grant from the Brandon University Student's Union Work Study Program 2009.
Researchers are responsible for observing Canadian copyright restrictions.
Finding Aid
File level inventory available for some boxes. The Pool Elevator library and publications are available online through the Brandon University Library catalogue.
Speeches and addresses given by executives of the Manitoba Wheat Pool and MPE as well as argricultural experts and supporters of the co-operative movement helped to spread and solidify support for the Pools. They also served to educate rural members on a variety of topics. See fonds level description of RG 4 for complete history/bio of MPE.
Scope and Content
Sub-series MPE B.8 consists of speeches made by various important members and executives of Manitoba Pool Elevators. Records include the following:
1a. Addresses 1930 -1946
1b. Addresses 1946 -1954
2. Addresses 1954 -1960
3. Addresses 1969 -1975
4a. Addresses 1972 -1979
4b. Addresses 1972 -1979
5a. F.W. Hamilton Speeches 1967 -1973
5b. F.W. Hamilton Speeches 1962 -1966
5c. F.W. Hamilton Speeches 1960 -1962
5d. F.W. Hamilton Speeches 1949 -1960
6a. W.J. Parker Speeches 1945
6b. W.J. Parker Speeches 1940 -1944
7a. W.J. Parker Speeches 1948 -1950
7b. W.J. Parker Speeches 1946 -1948
8a. W.J. Parker Speeches 1954 -1958
8b. W.J. Parker Speeches 1951 -1954
9a. W.J. Parker Speeches 1968 -1970
9b. W.J. Parker Speeches 1960 -1967
10. F.W. Ransom Addresses 1942 - 1948
11. Miscellaneous Addresses 1948 - 1955; no dates
12. Miscellaneous Addresses 1960; no dates
13. E.S. Russenholt Addresses
14. V. Martens " The Implications of Including Protein in Segregrating Canadian Wheat"
